Faria v. San Jacinto Unified School Dist.

• Decision Date: 26 November 1996
• Docket Number: No. E015388,E015388
• Citation: 50 Cal.App.4th 1939,59 Cal.Rptr.2d 72
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 114 Ed. Law Rep. 569, 96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8694, 96 Daily Journal D.A.R. 14,272 Alfred FARIA, Jr., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. SAN JACINTO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants and Appellants.

Page 72

59 Cal.Rptr.2d 72

50 Cal.App.4th 1939, 114 Ed. Law Rep. 569,

96 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 8694,

96 Daily Journal D.A.R. 14,272

Alfred FARIA, Jr., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. SAN JACINTO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants and Appellants.

No. E015388.

Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division 2, California.

Nov. 26, 1996.

Certified for Partial Publication. ^*

Wagner, Sisneros & Wagner, Christine M. Wagner and John J. Wagner, Encinitas, for Defendants and Appellants.

Littler, Mendelson, Fastiff, Tichy & Mathiason, Richard J. Currier, C. Anne Hudson

and Judith S. Islas, San Diego, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

McKINSTER, Associate Justice.

The defendants appeal from a judgment entered after trial, awarding damages for a wrongful demotion of the plaintiff. We modify the judgment and affirm it as modified.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Beginning in the 1989-1990 school year and continuing through 1991-1992, Alfred L. Faria, Jr., served as the assistant principal of San Jacinto High School. By a letter dated March 11, 1992, and received by Faria the following day, the school district notified Faria that he would be reassigned to a teaching position for the ensuing 1992-1993 school year. In response, Faria sued the district, its superintendent, and the school board (collectively, the "District") in an eight-count combined petition for writ of mandate and complaint for damages.

The first seven counts sought the issuance of a writ of mandate declaring that his demotion was invalid and ordering the District to reinstate him to the position of assistant principal for the 1992-1993 school year. Those counts were based upon allegations of various procedural defects in the District's decision to demote him, but only the fourth count is relevant here. In it, Faria claimed that the notice of his reassignment was untimely under the standards established in Education Code section 44951. That count asked not only for reinstatement but also for an award of back pay lost during the period of his reassignment.

Turning from procedural defects in the demotion to the reason behind it, his eighth count alleged that the district had demoted him because he had been arrested for an alcohol-related misdemeanor offense for which he was never convicted, thereby violating Labor Code section 432.7, subdivision (a) ¹ and entitling him to an award of actual damages. Alleging further that the district's violation was intentional, he also prayed for treble damages and attorney's fees. (Id., subd. (c).) He did not, however, seek reinstatement on the ground that the demotion had been for the statutorily prohibited reason.

The mandate counts were bifurcated from the damage count. The claim regarding the timeliness of the reassignment notice, along with the other mandate counts, was tried to the court without a jury in July of 1994. While the trial court agreed that the notice had been untimely for a reassignment for the 1992-1993 school year, it found that it was timely for 1993-1994. Accordingly, it refused to order Faria's reinstatement, but did award damages in the sum of $17,766, representing one year's differential in Faria's compensation.

Immediately thereafter, the Labor Code claim was tried to a jury. By a special verdict, the jury found that each of the defendants had violated section 432.7 by relying upon the arrest in deciding to reassign Faria, that the violation was intentional, and that Faria had suffered damages of $255,325. On a motion for new trial, the trial court reduced the jury's finding on actual damages to $213,192, trebled it pursuant to subdivision (c) of section 432.7, and entered judgment in the sum of $639,576. The court also awarded attorney's fees pursuant to section 432.7, subdivision (c), in the sum of $183,750.

The trial court granted some limited relief on some of Faria's other mandate counts, but did not order his reinstatement. Faria does not appeal from those denials of reinstatement or from any other aspect of the judgment. The District appeals only from those portions of the judgment concerning the claims under section 432.7 and Education Code section 44951.

CONTENTIONS

The District contends that the award of damages under section 432.7 is incorrect for a multitude of reasons: that monetary damages are available only to applicants rather than employees; that the award of actual damages, even after Faria's acceptance of the remittitur, is unsupported by substantial evidence; that the trial court's instructions to As to the damage award for the District's failure to timely notify Faria of his reassignment, the District argues that the deadline upon which the trial court relied is applicable only to principals, not to assistant principals such as Faria.

the jury on the definition of an intentional violation were erroneous; and that the trial court erred in excluding the District's evidence of its reason for reassigning Faria.

DISCUSSION

A. AN EMPLOYEE MAY RECOVER DAMAGES FOR THE VIOLATION OF LABOR CODE SECTION 432.7, BUT NOT THE STATUTORY REMEDIES OF TREBLE DAMAGES AND ATTORNEY'S FEES.

1. Labor Code Section 432.7 Authorizes an Award of Monetary Relief Only to Applicants for Employment, Not to Existing Employees.

When Faria was demoted, he was an employee of the District, not someone applying for employment. Accordingly, Faria is not entitled to any of the remedies created by section 432.7 unless those remedies are available to employees of an offending employer as well as to applicants. As will be explained, we find that the monetary remedies provided by section 432.7 are available only to applicants. Therefore, the trial court erred in awarding monetary relief to Faria pursuant to section 432.7.

Section 432.7 prohibits an employer from asking an applicant for employment concerning any arrest which has not resulted in conviction. (Id., subd. (a).) It also forbids the employer from utilizing, "as a factor in determining any condition of employment including hiring, promotion, termination," or any training program, any record of any arrest or detention which did not result in a conviction. (Ibid.) Because it refers to decisions to promote, train, or terminate as well as those to hire, the section clearly governs an employer's decisions involving both existing employees and applicants for employment. That employees are protected along with applicants is also demonstrated by the last sentence of subdivision (a): "Nothing in this section shall prevent an employer from asking an employee or applicant for employment about an arrest for which the employee or applicant is out on bail or on his or her own recognizance pending trial."

Nevertheless, that portion of subdivision (c) of section 432.7 which creates monetary remedies for an employer's violations of the prohibitions in subdivision (a) refers only to applicants:

"In any case where a person violates this section ..., the applicant may bring an action to recover from that person actual damages or two hundred dollars ($200), whichever is greater, plus costs, and reasonable attorney's fees. An intentional violation of this section shall entitle the applicant to treble actual damages, or five hundred dollars ($500), whichever is greater, plus costs, and reasonable attorney's fees." (Emphasis added.)

Arguing that the statutory remedy provided by section 432.7, subdivision (c), does not extend to employees, the District moved the trial court for nonsuit on that claim. The trial court denied the motion, construing the reference to "applicant" in subdivision (c) to include an employee. Seeking to uphold that ruling, Faria argues that the reference to "applicant" in subdivision (c) is ambiguous. Invoking a variety of rules of statutory construction, Faria concludes that the ambiguity should be resolved by adopting the same interpretation favored by the trial court, thereby affording employees the same statutory remedies available to applicants.

Faria's argument fails. "The Legislature's intent is best deciphered by giving words their plain meanings." (Roberts v. City of Palmdale (1993) 5 Cal.4th 363, 376, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 330, 853 P.2d 496.) Accordingly, "[w]e are required to give effect to statutes according to the usual, ordinary import of the language employed in framing them." (People v. Belleci (1979) 24 Cal.3d 879, 884, 157 Cal.Rptr. 503, 598 P.2d 473, citations and internal punctuation omitted.) Subdivision (c) of section 432.7 defines monetary remedies solely in terms of those which may be recovered by an "applicant." As the term is used in section 432.7, "applicant" is expressly defined by statute to mean "an applicant for employment." (§ 430.) It is axiomatic that That lack of ambiguity precludes us from rewriting or otherwise imaginatively construing the statutory language as urged by Faria. (See City of Ontario v. Superior Court (1993) 12 Cal.App.4th 894, 901, 16 Cal.Rptr.2d 32.) "When statutory language is clear and unambiguous, there is no need for construction, and courts should not indulge in it." (West Covina Hospital v. Superior Court (1986) 41 Cal.3d 846, 850, 226 Cal.Rptr. 132, 718 P.2d 119.)

an "employee," by contrast, is someone whose application has been accepted by the employer and who has already been employed. That the two terms are intended by the Legislature to describe distinct groups of persons is demonstrated by its repeated use of the phrase "employee or applicant" in sections [50 Cal.App.4th 1945] 431, 432, and 432.5, as well as subdivision (a) of section 432.7. Similarly, section 432.2 refers to both applicants and employees. Given the statutory definition, and given the abundant illustrations that the Legislature recognizes the distinction between applicants and employees, the use of "applicants" in subdivision (c) of section 432.7 is not ambiguous. ²

The plain meaning of the words of a statute may be disregarded only when the application of their literal meaning would inevitably (1) produce...